Redemption And Penance
by henrarch
Summary: **BEING REWRITTEN** The Tenno fight, kill and save. Well, most of them do. Some simply want to finish their missions so they can get back to reading the news, or gazing out into space. Some mourn for what they have lost, while others use whatever is within their power to get it back. There are also those, who have lost the most, who simply couldn't care less. Spoilers for TSD/TWW.


An Excalibur sat against the walls of a Grineer Galleon, shakily clutching the remnants of its severed right arm at the shoulder. Quick, shallow breaths jettisoned a fine mist from either side of its neck, with occasional coughing fits causing blood to spray instead.

No teammates, no communications, and no remaining way to fight, with their weapons gone and only one remaining arm, the Excalibur simply sat there, waiting. With both its legs practically in pieces and twisted at unnatural angles from a grenade that had detonated at its feet earlier, it couldn't even run anymore.

Waiting for what exactly, though? Surely not for their own rescue, the world wouldn't be so kind as to give them that. So then what? The answer came with the footsteps of several individuals; Grineer soldiers.

Lifting their bloodied head slowly, the Excalibur met eye to 'eye' with several Lancers, and a few Butchers and Scorpions, crowding slightly. They were in no hurry, satisfied that their prey was both immobilised and impotent. So they sneered at it, glowered at the felled beast at their feet, and at their mercy.

Though mercy was the last thing they would give it.

One of the Scorpions walked forward slowly, uttering something in the guttural language of the cloned legion, and stopped at the side of the Tenno, holding her machete with conviction and purpose. The Excalibur had followed her with his eyeless gaze, but had afterwards turned back to the mob before it.

Slowly, it lowered its head, as if to say, ' _end it._ ' There was pride in it still, but no more strength. That had long since expired.

The Scorpion didn't have to be asked twice. It raised, then lowered the blade, with little pause between either motion.

The ground seemed to, as if in slow motion, rise to meet the Tenno's face, but everything went black not long after.

In a darkened room, amongst the wrinkled sheets of a blanket, a single lilac orb lit up, followed by deep, laboured breaths. A person sat up in their bed, the darkness obscuring their features, except for a glowing, lilac left eye. Slowly, absentmindedly, they reached across their chest with their left hand, and clutched at their right shoulder, squeezing lightly at the small stump where their right arm should have been.

Reaching towards a small bedside table on their left, they scraped a stiff piece of leather, about the size of their hand from wrist to fingertip and shaped like a scalene triangle with rounded edges, and fastened it to the right side of their face, snapping together several clasps at the back of their head.

A quiet, tired voice uttered, "Lights." And the room was illuminated with a clear white glow, revealing the girl, an operator, with the leather sitting over the right side of her face, covering from just in front of her ear, to the edge of her nose, and just above her mouth. A strip ran across the top of her nose, and under her left eye, with two others on the other side directly above and below her ear. From underneath the leather patch, a few stray tendrils of black snaking their way over her skin, across her nose and down her neck.

She shook her head sharply. "Damn nightmares"

The markings travelled underneath her suit, towards her right shoulder. The rest of her body, however, was obscured by her suit; a simple grey Koppra variant without the useless right sleeve. Her hair, an unnaturally vivid white reaching down to the middle of her back and chest, was strewn about slightly and clumped together with sweat, but otherwise relatively straight. Matched with her porcelain white skin, she looked more like a ghost that a person.

A ghost of the past. It fit her perfectly.

Pushing the covers of her legs and sitting on the edge of her bed, the operator yawned and stretched her shoulders backwards, before standing in a single motion, and heading over to a tall, upright, metal box, which hissed slightly at her approach. It opened, revealing several spouts and jets, and a series of small holes on the floor.

With swift, deft movements, she tugged at clasps on her suite, and it fell away moments later, revealing the extent of the black lines on her body; black, electricity-like burns spread out from her right shoulder up her neck and across her face, and down just before the bottom of her ribs. There were markings across her back and chest as well, stopping just before her middle on either side.

Leaning down, the girl picked up the bundle of clothes, and carelessly tossed it into a small chute just next to the box, and it was sucked away to some other compartment of her Orbiter.

She walked forward, but paused when her foot was just about to step down, and sighed softly. Reaching towards the back of her head once again, she tugging at the clasps of her eye-patch to revealing her closed right eyelid and tossed it back towards the bed. She missed.

Grunting, she stepped forwards and waved her hand. Immediately, a holographic display popped into existence, detailing -in Orokin- settings for heat, water intensity, and which spouts to use. She fiddled with it for a moment, setting a relatively high temperature and pressure, and leaving on all spouts. 'Poking' a green orb at the bottom of the interface, the girl waved her hand once more, and the display blinked off. Moments later, the water began shooting from the spouts, and the operator made a noise of approval, shutting the metal door behind her.

After a length of time, the door opened again, and a very wet Tenno walked out, steaming and blushing softly all over from the warmth. Above the chute where her suit had been dropped, a tray popped out of the wall, containing a large blue towel. Picking it up revealed her freshly cleaned and creases-less, smoky coloured suit. She dried herself quickly, and dropped the towel in the chute, before grabbing her suit.

Pulling it open, she slid her right leg in first, followed by her left. Next, she let go of the cuff and let it fall slack, before sliding her left arm into the sleeve and pulling both sides together. A few snaps and pops, and she was dressed in her suit. Reaching behind her head, she tugged the remaining hair out from inside her collar, and let it sit with the rest; straight and knot-free.

Walking back towards her bed, the girl bent over, picking up the eye-patch and dusting it on her chest. Tipping her head back, she placed the eye-patch where it had been before, closing her left eye and pressing one of the tabs onto her head with her thumb. Stretching her hand across, she caught another clasp tab with her middle and index fingers, and brought it close to her thumb. With practised movements, she snapped the two together again.

The tab on the left split into a 'Y' shape behind her ear, to match the two from the right side, and so she repeated her action, albeit with her head now forward-facing, as opposed to upward. Opening her left eye, she adjusted the patch, sitting it more comfortably across her face, and turned, heading towards a doorway opposite her bed.

Upon exiting the room, a voice from within, or perhaps from the ship, spoke. "Did you rest well, operator?" the operator merely grunted in response. "That is good." continued the body-less voice, with an almost monotone voice. "But now that you are awake, there is work to be done."

Shifting on her feet, the operator called out; "anything new in my inbox, Xeles?" her voice, although relatively quiet, held the faintest hint of rancour.

"Yes." The second voice, presumably Xeles, responded. "You have received contact from the lotus." Xeles' voice was slightly lower in pitch than the Operator's but distinctly female, with softly pronounced 'R' sounds, and short vowels.

"Understood." the operator sighed. When receiving a message from The Lotus, it was either a mission, or bad news. She wasn't sure which she liked less.

She made her way towards the front of her orbiter, slowing slightly at one of the ramps on either side of the arsenal, and again at the ramp to the front. Standing in front of her codex, she pulled up her inbox, waving her hands about to sort and delete unnecessary messages, like Darvo's 'latest deal', and whatnot. Reaching the top, with the unread messages, she tapped the message from The Lotus.

It read:

"Tenno Heather,

Firstly, regarding your last mission, you have received payment in full.

Secondly, your next assignment is as follows: find and destroy the two mining vessels located on the Grineer base at the attached coordinates.

-Lotus"

The Tenno, Heather, scowled slightly

Heather opened up a second window on the codex, bringing up a map. Tapping the screen twice, she brought up an input box, and copied the coordinates across. Tapping the green dot next to the box caused the map to zoom in on a region of Saturn's asteroid belt.

"Set a course for the region on the map." Heather spoke aloud. "Make the necessary corrections for the orbit of the asteroid."

"Understood, Operator." Xeles responded in her typical monotone voice. "We will arrive at 0500 universal common time."

"So two hours then." Heather mumbled to herself, glancing at the clock in the corner of her codex. She turned towards the viewing window, gazing out into the blackness of space for a few minutes, before turning around and heading to the arsenal.

Waving her hands in front of it, a holographic image of an Excalibur appeared, complete with a Latron rifle, Lato Pistol and Skana blade, all of which were in their default colours. Looking to her left, she saw the list of equipment shown, and tapped on the box labelled 'Warframe'. The list expanded, showing the Frames that she currently had in her possession; an Excalibur, a Rhino, and a Mesa.

She thought for a moment, then tapped on the Rhino's name, and the holographic Excalibur disappeared, moments later being replaced by a Rhino, once again in default colours. She looked at her weapons for a moment, but didn't change them. 'Tapping' a box at the bottom of the list that said "submit" in Orokin, Heather waved her hand again, and the display disappeared.

She returned to her room, sitting on the bed for a moment, before reaching over to the bedside table, and pulling open one of its compartments, revealing a small rectangle, no larger than their palm. Pressing a button on the bottom left of the corner, however, made it fold out to twice its original size and reveal a holographic sheet suspended between the four sides.

The holo-tablet showed a few boxes, with labels like; News, Stories and compare, to name a few. Heather stuck her finger through the 'News' square, and the screen flicked to a bunch of news articles, detailing the recent events of the Origin System. Heather tapped the first few with two fingers, causing the articles to open in another tab, displayed at the bottom of the screen.

She spent a fair amount of time flicking through assorted articles, not really focusing on any in particular. It was mostly just 'where the Grineer had attacked last', and, 'corpus board embezzlement scandal' sort of stuff. Nothing unusual, and certainly not exciting. With a sigh of boredom, Heather closed down the news application, and opened up the 'Stories' one instead.

Dragging the holo-screen up, Heather eventually settled on a story from the Orokin era predating the fall, one of opulence and grandeur. Being of common birth, Heather didn't know much about the lives of the Orokin elite. To her, the story might as well have been a fantasy. All that mattered was that the life in the story was different from her own. No war, no killing.

And no Warframes.

She kept scanning through the text, letter by letter, word by word. Time lost its value, and all that mattered was the next page. But then she heard a soft ringing, not unlike that of a bell, and she closed her eye, folding the holo-pad back onto itself. She stood up, setting it on the table softly, and headed out of her room again, this time turning right, and walking through the doorway to her transference pod. Ever since her debacle with the Grineer Queens, it had become nothing more than a comfortable chair, but it felt almost wrong to engage transference from anywhere else.

As she approached, the pod itself sprung into life, opening quickly. She slid into place, closed her eyes, and waited. A few minutes later, Xeles spoke again. "Operator, it is time for your mission."

"I'm aware" Heather acknowledged her Cephalon, almost bitingly.

"Understood." Came Xeles' affirmation. Neither of them continued the conversation.

Feeling through the void, Heather found her Rhino, and began projecting herself into it, filling it with pseudo-life, and movement. Very little movement, mind you, as it was already in the holding bay of her landing craft, a Liset. It felt stifling, yet familiar.

When the Liset detached from the orbiter, Heather closed her eye, and slumped forwards slightly. The chair closed around her, and everything became silent.

After an indistinguishable amount of time - it could have been minutes, or even seconds - Heather felt the familiar pull of artificial gravity, and soon after her Liset rotated the Warframe bay, allowing Heather to drop, almost gracefully, onto the outside of the asteroid. She could feel the pull of space on the Rhino's lungs, so she wasted no time searching for a way inside. What presented itself was an exposed section of metal, which she stabbed her Skana into and slashed in an 'X' shape, before stomping the metal in on itself. Directly underneath, however, was internal wiring and piping, not a way inside.

Moving on, Heather found another possible entry, in the form of a disposal chute. Small as it was, it would have to do, and Heather proceeded to forcefully stuff herself into the hole, bending the metal around the hulking frame of the Rhino in the process. The process was slow, but at least she was inside. Somewhere down the line, the chute caved in on one side, and heather almost fell through, before making her way inside.

After tearing her way through the metal, Heather once again observed her surroundings, looking for any possible entry. A maintenance hatch on a wall not far from her gave her exactly what she needed, and she walked over to it. With no obvious sign of a control panel, Heather opted instead to tear it open by hand, and dug both of her hands into the hatch, wedging them between the frame and door, and wrenched it open. A sudden burst of air threatened to push her out into space again, but Heather held her ground, and made her way into the hatch, pulling it closed and stemming the flow of oxygen.

For the first time in a while, Heather could hear again. And while the disgruntled rantings of mutilated clones wasn't ideal to listen to, it was better than hearing nothing. Eventually, after following said Grineer's voices, she found her way to a ventilation duct. She considered stomping it in, but stopped, activation her Iron Skin first. The loud noise that followed alerted many nearby Grineer, who came running with their weapons raised. Their bullets and blades, however, simply bounced off the Rhino's skin, and Heather made no effort to retaliate, instead following the small map in her peripheral vision.

She found her targets, and destroyed them by charging into them, leaving behind only a mangled pile of burning steel, and foot shaped craters where she had stood. With her objectives complete, Heather began backtracking to her initial entry point, once again ignoring the angry mob that was following her around.

As she approached a door, Heather heard an alarm ring, and the door slammed shut mere inches from her face, causing her to stumble back a few steps. A lancer stood in front of a control panel, with a smug look on his face. Heather sighed. Walking to the console, Heather shoved the Lancer aside, him flailing wildly at her, and proceeded to turn off the alarm, and disengage lockdown.

Then she put her fist through the console, so they couldn't stop her again.

The Grineer looked at each other, then back to the Rhino. Most of them had run out of bullets, or broken their blades, and the ones that hadn't saw the obvious futility in continuing. So they simply watched, shifting on their feet, as the Rhino returned to the door that had they had previously shut in its face, and leave.

Heather clambered back out the disposal chute, and looked around for her Liset, spotting it on her map hidden behind another asteroid. "Ready for exfil, Xeles." she spoke aloud, with her real body. Soon after, the Liset appeared from behind the asteroid, and approached the Rhino, rotating the Warframe bay to the open position once again. When it was close enough, and flying parallel, Heather climbed into the recess, and gripped the handles, causing the bay to swivel closed. Once again, her world was dark and silent.

The trip back to her landing craft felt somehow shorter than the one to the Grineer base. Perhaps, Heather mused, it was because the mission was already finished, and she would have a decent amount of time before her next assignment, as per her rank.

 _Current_ rank.

Heather found herself thinking back a few months, to when she was both feared and respected by friend and foe alike. Her Warframes, her weapons, her status, all that she had lost due to a single, simple error.

A rescue operation that had ended in disaster.

Heather was using her Limbo, in order to banish the captured target to the rift and keep them safe. In the Europan holding cell, Heather was forced to exit the rift herself, in order to banish the target. In the split second delay between exiting the rift, banishing the target, and returning to the rift, she had been shot. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been too grave an issue for a Warframe, but a high-powered sniper round through the head was more than enough to incapacitate the Limbo. Heather didn't even have enough time to feel the pain, as the Limbo's head was practically blown to pieces, severing her transference.

As expected, Heather later learned that the target that she had been trying to rescue had been executed. But that wasn't the worst part.

The target in question was in fact a member of the High Tenno Council, who had been captured in transit. The other members of the council were more than displeased, and an immediate summons told Heather that she was due a hefty punishment.

"Do you know why you are here, Tenno?" one of the councillors asked heather, from behind his opaque white face veil. Heather kneeled in a seiza with her left hand in her left leg, merely nodded and keeping her head low. "Then you must also know that your failure cannot -will not- go unreprimanded." he continued. Heather felt herself tense up, her lips pursing.

"You will be punished accordingly." another Councillor called out, somewhere to the left. Heather didn't raise her head to determine where. "Your blunder was one that only a novice, only one newly awakened from cryostasis could possibly have made."

"As such," another Councillor followed on, "you shall be stripped of your rank, Warframes, and weapons, so as to match your apparent skill level." Heather bit her bottom lip. Hard.

Feeling the jarring sensation of her Liset docking back onto her Landing craft stirred Heather from her transference pseudo-trance, and brought her back to reality. As she leaned forward, the transference chair opened up, and Heather stood up. She stretched her stiff legs and headed back to the front of her ship, kneeling at the navigation console. Flicking around the holographic projection of the solar system, Heather spent a few seconds looking at each planet. A minute later, she brought the system to a halt, Earth in front of her.

With a wave of her hand, Heather turned off the display leaned back, gazing at the surface of Saturn. "Set a course," she called out after a moment, "for Cetus."

"Understood, Operator." came Xeles' response. "We will arrive at 1330 Universal common time."

"Got it." Heather affirmed, leaning back and lying on the floor of her landing craft.

"If you wish to sleep," Xeles began, a hint of Exasperation almost noticeable in her almost expressionless voice, "you have a bed for that."

"I'm comfortable here." Heather responded, almost mumbling. "And I can't look out into space from my room."

"As you wish." the Cephalon snorted. No further sounds came from it. Heather remained on her back, sprawled out and gazing into the endless black. By the time she had noticed the weight of her eyelid, it had already shut itself and plunged her into the depths of sleep. She found herself dreaming again. This time, of an Ember in a derelict.

She heard the familiar howling of the infested, and her eyebrows clenched as she whimpered. She knew all too well what was coming next.


End file.
